Michigan football 'catfishes' its own players

Brady Hoke and his Michigan staff go catfishing, with Wolverines players as their target.AP photo

So here's a new twist to the whole Manti Te'o/catfishing saga: proactive catfishing!

Stick with us, everyone. It gets better.

Michigan decided to do some catfishing of its own, according to MLive.com. The Wolverines' staff hired an outside consultant who used a fake woman to contact football players and, well, go on a catfishing exercise.

"We gave him 20 Facebook accounts of guys on our team," Michigan coach Brady Hoke said during a state high school football coaches meeting. "Well, two months later, we're in a team meeting and we're on the topic of what you put out there in the cyber universe. You should have seen 115 guys when that young lady—she was hot, now; a very, very nice looking young lady—when she walked into that meeting room, and the guys looking at each other.

"Because some of them didn't use their heads when communicating back and forth with that young lady."

The obvious reason for a school catfishing its own players? To prevent a Te'o-type episode from infecting the program. Michigan created its educational opportunity before the Te'o story broke.

In the past month alone, Notre Dame has gone from the highs of an unbeaten regular season and playing for the national championship, to the embarrassment of its top player being publicly humiliated and being associated with daytime talk shows.

More than likely, Michigan isn't the only program taking such steps to prevent catfishing.

"The tweeting deal, I still don't understand to be honest with ya — and the different things the guys will do," Hoke said. "But my point is this: Be aware of it. Watch what your kids are doing."